Ohio, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia should take a common approach to taxing gas and oil drilling in the Marcellus and Utica Shale, leaders of research and policy organizations from each state said today.

A comprehensive five-year study of 288 highly profitable Fortune 500 companies finds that 111 of them, including six based in Pennsylvania, paid no federal corporate income tax in at least one of the last five years.

Beginning Tuesday, Pennsylvanians who are working but lack health insurance will be able to shop for and compare options for affordable coverage on a new competitive Health Insurance Marketplace established by the federal health care law.

“There is little to celebrate in this budget," says PBPC Director Sharon Ward. "It fails to adequately address the enormity of the funding crisis facing Pennsylvania schools. 80 percent of the cuts to classrooms are left intact, and that means higher property taxes and even larger class sizes in our schools.

Local officials from across Pennsylvania came to Harrisburg today with a message for state lawmakers: prioritize investments in our schools, county health services, and infrastructure over new state tax cuts.

With Mother’s Day this Sunday, PBPC and Public Citizens for Children and Youth are highlighting new research showing that 670,000 working moms in Pennsylvania benefit from the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) and the Child Tax Credit (CTC).

The governor’s budget does little to reduce the trend of disinvestment in Pennsylvania schools and communities. It relies heavily on speculative and one-time sources of funding, and proposes expensive new corporate tax breaks that will continue to shift costs to local taxpayers. Read PBPC's media statement.

"Today the House has taken the unprecedented step of passing a bill that creates a costly new program outside of the budget process," PBPC director Sharon Ward said in a statement today. "House Bill 2626 would provide profitable corporations a new tax credit just for filling a vacant position, without creating any new jobs."